Five citizens — this is the official statistics of appeals to the Ministry of Health regarding one of Ukraine's most famous private clinics over four years. A number that means nothing in itself until you place it alongside other facts: a criminal case about the death of businessman Adnan Kivan, public stories of relatives of deceased patients, and now — a complaint from Igor Melai's widow, after which the Ministry of Health finally instructed the Odesa Regional State Administration to conduct a clinical expert evaluation of the treatment.
The question is not whether there were complaints. The question is what the system did between the first complaint and the fifth.
How the mechanism works — and where it gets stuck
Formally, an algorithm exists: a citizen appeals to the Ministry of Health, the ministry appoints an unscheduled inspection of related legal entities, and based on the results can suspend or revoke a license. This is exactly how one of the structures associated with the Odrex brand had its medical practice license completely terminated.
But here lies a practical nuance that is rarely explained to patients: a private clinic is not a single legal entity, but often a network of related structures. Revocation of a license at one of them does not mean closure of the brand. A patient seeking information about clinic safety before going into surgery sees the name "Odrex," not the specific registration number of the legal entity with a suspended or revoked license.
This is a systemic gap: the license register is tied to legal entities, while reputation and patient flow are tied to the brand. An inspection can be formally successful while market confidence in the name remains unchanged.
What this means for a patient looking for a clinic
Five appeals to the Ministry of Health over four years is essentially five families who went through a long and non-transparent path: first an attempt to understand what happened, then — where to turn, and only then — the actual appeal to the relevant authority. It is impossible to estimate how many cases remain outside this statistic because relatives don't know such a mechanism exists or don't believe in its effectiveness.
The forensic medical examination in Kivan's case indicates that after surgery, the patient may not have been prescribed necessary antibiotic therapy and did not receive proper response to postoperative complications — this, according to the investigation, led to sepsis and death.
For an ordinary person, this means one thing: checking the reputation of a private clinic should not be limited to online reviews or brand name. It's worth checking which specific legal entity will provide the service under a particular contract, and whether it had license suspensions — the Ministry of Health maintains this information in open registers, though not always conveniently structured for an average patient's search.
What's next
The Kivan case has reached court and is at the evidence examination stage; the next hearing is September 3, 2026. The clinical expert evaluation of Igor Melai's treatment, entrusted to the Odesa Regional State Administration, is still ahead.
If the result of this evaluation repeats the story of the previous inspection — a formal decision regarding one legal entity with no consequences for the brand as a whole — the question of trust in private medicine will be resolved not in Ministry of Health offices, but in courts, where relatives go after the inspection mechanism proves insufficient.
